Giltric:Yakk: Giltric: Bush didn't inherit a recession, he inherited a couple bubbles that were bursting and/or about to burst.

And thank goodness he learned his lesson from that about deregulation and dismantled agencies helping to create bubbles.

What agencies did he dismantle, what bubbles did he create, what was deregulated?

He dismantled agencies by appointing useless people to lead those agencies. Look at FEMA for example. Look at all the Monsanto people working in the FDA and USDA; mining executives in OSHA and the mining oversight agencies. The list goes on.

baka-san:Lionel Mandrake: TV's Vinnie: another cultural observer: Citrate1007: Conservatives aren't very good at history or math.

They make up for it with their oil paintings.

You know who also was right wing and did paintings?

This guy?

[www.simonbrushfield.com image 460x276]

another cultural observer: www.menospalvos.lt

Both would be drummed out of the GOB now for not being "pure"

Both great men, though I can find some faults with both.

Plenty of historical left-leaning figures held views which, by today's standards, would be unacceptable to the DNC. The DNC would TOTALLY "drum out" many, many historical democrats for not being "pure" democrats by today's standards. Something about the South and racial bigotry.

TV's Vinnie:another cultural observer: TV's Vinnie: another cultural observer: TV's Vinnie: another cultural observer: Citrate1007: Conservatives aren't very good at history or math.

They make up for it with their oil paintings.

You know who also was right wing and did paintings?

[www.menospalvos.lt image 600x400]

Ike would have been shouted at by Bill O'Reilly and called a RINO by today's gop.

Perhaps, but today's GOP doesn't own the historical "right wing", and building nuclear missiles to bring down the federal debt isn't exactly the product of a left wing world view, then or now.

No "perhaps" about it! We'd still be on muddy roads and crumbling narrow streets if today's gop was able to stop Ike's Interstate Highway plan.

Ike's Interstate Highway Plan would be held up for CENTURIES thanks to environmental impact studies and the presence of endangered worms in Nebraska, and a rare root vegetable in California. Neither party would let the interstates be built today without a huge fight.

another cultural observer:Plenty of historical left-leaning figures held views which, by today's standards, would be unacceptable to the DNC. The DNC would TOTALLY "drum out" many, many historical democrats for not being "pure" democrats by today's standards. Something about the South and racial bigotry.

Lionel Mandrake:baka-san: Lionel Mandrake: TV's Vinnie: another cultural observer: Citrate1007: Conservatives aren't very good at history or math.

They make up for it with their oil paintings.

You know who also was right wing and did paintings?

This guy?

[www.simonbrushfield.com image 460x276]

another cultural observer: www.menospalvos.lt

Both would be drummed out of the GOB now for not being "pure"

Both great men, though I can find some faults with both.

GOB?

[encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com image 259x194]

COME ON!!

THey are no longer the Grand Old Party.

Now they are Geriatric Odious Bastards.

another cultural observer:Plenty of historical left-leaning figures held views which, by today's standards, would be unacceptable to the DNC. The DNC would TOTALLY "drum out" many, many historical democrats for not being "pure" democrats by today's standards. Something about the South and racial bigotry.

another cultural observer:No "perhaps" about it! We'd still be on muddy roads and crumbling narrow streets if today's gop was able to stop Ike's Interstate Highway plan.

Ike's Interstate Highway Plan would be held up for CENTURIES thanks to environmental impact studies and the presence of endangered worms in Nebraska, and a rare root vegetable in California. Neither party would let the interstates be built today without a huge fight.

Those are the nefarious lawyers who leverage a reasonable and sensible environmental impact report request to squeeze out money from the government. They have nothing to do with the left other than using the left's reasonable requests for investigating the environmental impacts to extract extortion money. The left does not work with them, nor does the left accept their use.

My favorite bit of conservative doublethink is over where to lay the blame for the 9/11 attacks. Most of the same people who were screeching "WAG THE DOG! WAG THE DOG! HE'S DIVERTING ATTENTION FROM HIS BJS!" when Clinton was launching cruise missiles at Islamic extremists toward the end of his watch are the same morons who immediately turned around and blamed him for "doing nothing" and allowing it to happen when the attacks occurred (while simultaneously venerating the guy who was on vacation with his entire cabinet for a month before the attacks and who refused to view the intel for months before that because the procedures forced the intelligence community to brief multiple layers of underlings before bringing anything to the cabinet level).

And this is exactly the sort of thing that has kept me from voting for a single republican candidate on any governmental level for nearly ten years now. Conservatives have just become so thoroughly and maliciously dishonest in their crazy attempts to maintain ideological purity that I cannot fathom how it could possibly be in my best interests to ever vote for one again. Even the worst democrats are better than the best republicans because giving an honest republican an office seems to only accomplish one of two things anymore:

1. A one-term "RINO" who gets chased out for not adhering to the party line 100%or2. An extra party-line vote that indirectly assists the lunatics

When it comes down to it, even if you can ignore their endlessly hateful, slanderous assaults on minorities, women and the poor and their seeming ability to do nothing except block "anything a democrats wants" I just don't see where there's any room in their party ideology anymore for anything that could benefit me.

dericwater:another cultural observer: No "perhaps" about it! We'd still be on muddy roads and crumbling narrow streets if today's gop was able to stop Ike's Interstate Highway plan.

Ike's Interstate Highway Plan would be held up for CENTURIES thanks to environmental impact studies and the presence of endangered worms in Nebraska, and a rare root vegetable in California. Neither party would let the interstates be built today without a huge fight.

Those are the nefarious lawyers who leverage a reasonable and sensible environmental impact report request to squeeze out money from the government. They have nothing to do with the left other than using the left's reasonable requests for investigating the environmental impacts to extract extortion money. The left does not work with them, nor does the left accept their use.

Lionel Mandrake:another cultural observer: Plenty of historical left-leaning figures held views which, by today's standards, would be unacceptable to the DNC. The DNC would TOTALLY "drum out" many, many historical democrats for not being "pure" democrats by today's standards. Something about the South and racial bigotry.

But were they democrats? yes. And would they be "drummed out"? yes. I'll admit I erred in including political ideology in a discussion about political parties, and I'm not going to get into a fight with you regarding whether or not Robert Byrd was left-leaning or not. Democrats were the party of the poor and downtrodden (white folks), many of whom really liked unions.

Irregardlessly, both parties would "drum out" many of their past figures. If we can agree on that point, I've gotten what I wanted out of the conversation.

Both sides are bad, so invent time travel and find a decent politician from back when at least once side was decent (good luck) and bring that politician into the present so he can fix things for us.

dericwater:another cultural observer: No "perhaps" about it! We'd still be on muddy roads and crumbling narrow streets if today's gop was able to stop Ike's Interstate Highway plan.

Ike's Interstate Highway Plan would be held up for CENTURIES thanks to environmental impact studies and the presence of endangered worms in Nebraska, and a rare root vegetable in California. Neither party would let the interstates be built today without a huge fight.

Those are the nefarious lawyers who leverage a reasonable and sensible environmental impact report request to squeeze out money from the government. They have nothing to do with the left other than using the left's reasonable requests for investigating the environmental impacts to extract extortion money. The left does not work with them, nor does the left accept their use.

another cultural observer:Ike's Interstate Highway Plan would be held up for CENTURIES thanks to environmental impact studies and the presence of endangered worms in Nebraska, and a rare root vegetable in California. Neither party would let the interstates be built today without a huge fight.

the same goes for EVERYTHING in human societyEVERY major city destroyed HUGE ecosystemsroads and rails, samepyramids?

ALL farms destroyed HUGE ecosystems

all of human history is a collection of slash, burn, raze, plow, build on top of/whatever

another cultural observer:dericwater: another cultural observer: No "perhaps" about it! We'd still be on muddy roads and crumbling narrow streets if today's gop was able to stop Ike's Interstate Highway plan.

Ike's Interstate Highway Plan would be held up for CENTURIES thanks to environmental impact studies and the presence of endangered worms in Nebraska, and a rare root vegetable in California. Neither party would let the interstates be built today without a huge fight.

Those are the nefarious lawyers who leverage a reasonable and sensible environmental impact report request to squeeze out money from the government. They have nothing to do with the left other than using the left's reasonable requests for investigating the environmental impacts to extract extortion money. The left does not work with them, nor does the left accept their use.

The Sierra Club is nefarious?

At first, they were genuine. Then the lawyers took over. Even the founders of the Sierra Club have nothing good to say about the Sierra Club now. This is one of the non-profits that had noble deeds at the start and is now nothing more than a money-raking scheme run by lawyers.

Lionel Mandrake:another cultural observer: But were they democrats? yes. And would they be "drummed out"? yes.

Yes, they were, yes they would, and rightfully so.

But Republicans worship a guy that they would never accept, so there's that extra layer of stupidity and/or hypocrisy.

Democrats do not have fond memories of segregationist Dems, most of whom became Republicans, anyway.

I'm going to disagree with you. If Reagan were re-animated (or brought forward courtesy of the Political Time Machine discussed above), and back to his spry young 98, or however old he was in 1983, republicans would ignore the attack ads, ignore the parts of his politics they disagreed with, and vote for Reagan as soon as the Constitution was amended to allow a 3rd term. They wouldn't even have to raise money to get him elected.

The novelty of electing a time-traveling president would trump any political differences.

another cultural observer:Irregardlessly, both parties would "drum out" many of their past figures. If we can agree on that point, I've gotten what I wanted out of the conversation.

No, not really. The democrats didn't "drum out" the racists. The southern racists got pissed off and left of their own volition when the party started to embrace civil rights. The democrats didn't drum them out, they just sort of said "Well, bye." when they left.

The republicans, on the other hand, did actively drum out some of their people. Specifically, the smart people. Because they decided back in the 70s that they could win more elections with numerical superiority if they just opened the doors and let ever bible-beating, racist, inbred yahoo into the fold. Which worked fine until the nutjobs decided that they were tired of being paid lip service to and actually started to take over the party's direction. Now every republican that wants to focus on something practical instead of a woman's cervix or whether or not the clean-shaven neighbor with the Subaru is banging his poker buddies gets chased away as a "RINO".

another cultural observer:TV's Vinnie: another cultural observer: TV's Vinnie: another cultural observer: TV's Vinnie: another cultural observer: Citrate1007: Conservatives aren't very good at history or math.

They make up for it with their oil paintings.

You know who also was right wing and did paintings?

[www.menospalvos.lt image 600x400]

Ike would have been shouted at by Bill O'Reilly and called a RINO by today's gop.

Perhaps, but today's GOP doesn't own the historical "right wing", and building nuclear missiles to bring down the federal debt isn't exactly the product of a left wing world view, then or now.

No "perhaps" about it! We'd still be on muddy roads and crumbling narrow streets if today's gop was able to stop Ike's Interstate Highway plan.

Ike's Interstate Highway Plan would be held up for CENTURIES thanks to environmental impact studies and the presence of endangered worms in Nebraska, and a rare root vegetable in California. Neither party would let the interstates be built today without a huge fight.

Give it up, brah. The requisites to be in today's gop make it impossible for another Ike, Lincoln, or even another Reagan to happen.

another cultural observer:Lionel Mandrake: another cultural observer: But were they democrats? yes. And would they be "drummed out"? yes.

Yes, they were, yes they would, and rightfully so.

But Republicans worship a guy that they would never accept, so there's that extra layer of stupidity and/or hypocrisy.

Democrats do not have fond memories of segregationist Dems, most of whom became Republicans, anyway.

I'm going to disagree with you. If Reagan were re-animated (or brought forward courtesy of the Political Time Machine discussed above), and back to his spry young 98, or however old he was in 1983, republicans would ignore the attack ads, ignore the parts of his politics they disagreed with, and vote for Reagan as soon as the Constitution was amended to allow a 3rd term. They wouldn't even have to raise money to get him elected.

The novelty of electing a time-traveling president would trump any political differences.

You mean 1988?

I'm talking about now, with the current teabagger-run GOP. I don't think they would go for a guy who raised taxes and granted amnesty to illegals.

That's the stupidity/hypocrisy. He did things that would automatically disqualify him today, yet they practically worship the guy.